What do you need? How much to do you need? When do you need it?

Patrick Pronk, Plant manager Saint Clar, France – as did his father, 50 years ago

“We follow three basic principles when working with our customers: What do you need, how much to do you need and when do you need it?

It’s all about flexibility. Whatever our customer needs, we’ll find a way to make it happen. When you think of all the different types of cheeses in Europe, there’s a huge disparity. Some cheeses are sliced, some are whole; some require coatings with high viscosity, others don’t. For us it’s about being creative in finding solutions.

It’s also important to be able to produce products in a range of formats and quantities. Big or small? Tonnes or kilogrammes? We produce packing in different sizes, ranging from small 100ml bottles to 1,000kg containers.

We are talking to our customers every week, asking what can we do better? What potential challenges do they have on the horizon? By doing this we’re able to treat the cause rather the effect and solve potential problems before they even happen.”